Ryan departs Janesville for national stage

Aug. 28, 2012

Paul Ryan speaks to a crowd in the gymnasium at Janesville Craig High School in Janesville Monday. / Lukas Keapproth/Wisconsin Center for Investigative

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JANESVILLE — Then, they knew him as the junior class president, the prom king, the tall lanky guy who graduated in 1988.

Now, the crowd that filled Janesville’s Craig High School fieldhouse know Paul Ryan as a contender for the vice presidency of the United States, and well-wishers packed the bleachers to bid him farewell.

Ryan, 42, reinforced his Wisconsin roots and linked the region’s fortunes to the nation’s on the eve of the Republican National Convention, where Ryan and Mitt Romney will be ratified as the party’s candidates to unseat President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden.

“Hello Janesville, it’s good to be back,” said Ryan, who has been campaigning nonstop since Romney introduced him as his vice presidential pick Aug. 11 at a press conference in front of the USS Wisconsin in Norfolk, Va.

“Everywhere I look I see so many familiar faces,” he said, speaking to a crowd peppered with foam cheeseheads and signs proclaiming, “Wisconsin believes.”

But polls show that a lot of people in Wisconsin and the country don’t know much about the U.S. representative who was elected to Congress in 1998. So this week will be crucial to Ryan’s political future.

“We are so into him, you assume everybody else is, but I’m sure they aren’t,” said Barb Richter of Janesville, who watched Ryan speak Monday. “Hopefully the convention will widen his horizons. I have my fingers crossed.”

Ryan talked about his deep roots in the south-central Wisconsin city of Janesville; he’s a fifth-generation native. He said his great, great grandfather thought Janesville in summer looked like his native Ireland.

“Then came winter,” Ryan joked.

Ryan talked about his view of limited government, a common theme from the Romney-Ryan campaign. “It’s important that our government works for the people and not the other way around.”

Ryan touched on the region’s economic history, which includes the 2010 closure of a major General Motors plant.

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“We’ve been hit hard ... but we are hardy people and we will recover from this,” he said.

Ryan said Obama has created “a nation of debt, a nation of doubt, a nation of decline.”

“We are not going to duck the tough issues and kick the can down the road,” he said. “We are going to lead.”

Danny Kanner, spokesman for the Obama campaign, said in a statement that Ryan “talked a lot about what makes America great. But what he and Mitt Romney don’t seem to understand is that the country’s strongest when the middle class is strong and prosperous.

“They’d raise taxes for middle class families with kids by an average of $2,000, turn Medicare into a voucher system, and slash critical investments in education and infrastructure. And they’d do it all to pay for massive tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires.”

Ryan’s messages played well with the Republicans in the Janesville gym. “We love you Paul,” screamed one woman in the crowd.

Even Ryan’s supporters here, however, acknowledge Ryan’s star power has limits in Wisconsin.

“You would think a person in his position of power would be a little more well known,” said 65-year-old Janesville resident Frank Drew.

Charles Franklin, a visiting professor of law and public policy who conducts polling at Marquette University, said that in July, polling indicated that 35 percent of people in Wisconsin couldn’t say whether they had a favorable or unfavorable opinion of Ryan.

The percentage of people unfamiliar with Ryan has dropped to 24 percent in Wisconsin, Franklin said.

“But even with all the massive publicity, there’s still a quarter of the public that hasn’t tuned in enough to form an opinion of him,” he said.

Franklin said these numbers aren’t unusual for a congressman. Even those who figure prominently in Washington policy debates — Ryan has made a name for himself for proposing major overhauls to Medicare — aren’t that well known outside their districts.

Joe Heim, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, said he would bet nine out of 10 people in his western Wisconsin city don’t know who Ryan is.

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“He’s never attempted to establish a base of party support that could lead to a statewide race,” Heim said. “He’s always been a little more interested in Congress, in particular lawmaking and the national stage.

“In a way, he’s being introduced to Wisconsin.”

Heim said this week will be a milestone in the development of Ryan’s reputation.

“He, along with several other Wisconsin residents, have been elevated nationally,” Heim said. “This is going to be one of his great moments to shine.”

Ann Squire, 68, of Janesville, said a lot of people in Wisconsin don’t know Ryan, and many probably don’t even know the names on the ticket.

“They will be paying attention now,” she said.

As Wisconsin voters get to know their homegrown candidate, they hold the state’s 10 electoral votes in their hands.

Franklin said recent polling indicates Ryan’s addition to the ticket resulted in a small bump of Wisconsin support for the Romney campaign. An Aug. 22 Marquette Law School Poll found the race tightening, although Obama and Biden still lead 49 to 46 percent in Wisconsin.

“It’s not a lot, but it moves it in the direction that the Romney campaign needed, certainly,” Franklin said.

Wisconsin has not chosen a Republican presidential candidate since 1984, but some recent elections have been so tight here, a small number of votes could matter.

In this state with a voting population of 4.3 million, Barack Obama won in 2008 with a margin of 412,000 votes. But in 2004, John Kerry won with a margin of only about 11,000 votes. In 2000, Al Gore won Wisconsin with a margin of just 5,708 votes, or only a fraction of one percent.

Franklin said that earlier in the year it didn’t seem like the Romney campaign was taking Wisconsin seriously as a tossup state.

“But the Ryan pick, this little bit of a bump, helps move it into a more competitive range and I think justifies at least at the moment looking at Wisconsin as a true battleground,” Franklin said.

Heim said presidential candidates can rarely win a state simply by picking a running mate from that state.

“(But) if it’s a very close election in Wisconsin ... one or two points could make the difference,” Heim said.

Ryan told Monday’s Janesville crowd that together they will “get the country back on the right track.”